


Double Life

by Bookwormsarah



Category: Chalet School - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-27
Updated: 2011-04-27
Packaged: 2017-10-18 18:03:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookwormsarah/pseuds/Bookwormsarah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An attempt to explain one of EBD's coincidences...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double Life

Mary had been so beautiful it wasn’t surprising that he had fallen in love with her, despite everything. After a hot, exhausting day in the hospital, she was like a cool breeze calming and refreshing him.

Gradually he became aware that his feelings were reciprocated, and they began to spend more and more time together. He thought about her all through his furlong. She filled his thoughts. He could hear her laughter, her gentle hum as she took stock in a store cupboard, her soothing tones with the patients, her husky voice raised in song when she thought no one was listening.

In unguarded moments he found himself imagining spending the rest of his life with her, side by side. He shook his head when he caught himself – it was wrong, wrong, wrong. But who would ever know?

He thought she expected him to speak. He caught the other nurses teasing her about it, saw her blushes, but wasn’t annoyed. It felt right that they should be bracketed together.

A couple of times when they talked about their childhoods, of the experiences that had brought them to this place, he was aware that he held back, that this was the opportunity to explain why they could never marry. Then he realised that the chance to explain had gone. He could never tell her now. And it didn’t seem to matter. The other life was so much in the past, felt so far away, that it was almost as if it had happened to another person. Nobody in this at the hospital, nobody in the country knew. He could keep it to himself and nothing would matter. If he didn’t make a promise, he jeopardised nothing.

But one day he found himself speaking without thinking ‘I wish we could always be together like this.’

She looked into his eyes with such love he started to tremble. ‘We can.’

Now he just had to break it to his wife.

***

He had met Gwen when he was just a boy, early on in his medical training. She was seventeen, fresh from school in the West Country, fiery and passionate, and sang like an angel. Her uncle, his godfather, had introduced them after a concert in which she had a small part, and they had been caught up in a love affair that had burned in them both for the brief months she had left in England, and lasted in passionate letters after she returned to her family in Canada.

He wasn’t sure how the proposal had come about, but they both knew that after he finished his training she would come back to England and they would marry. For afterwards they had made no plans, but with the certainty of youth and inexperience, they knew it would all work out.

Her ship docked three days before his Graduation. He met the boat at the dock and pressed the ring onto her finger. It had been nearly four years since they had last met, but both were convinced that nothing had changed. They were married the following month, and settled down very happily together.

By the autumn, both were secretly a little uncomfortable. Gwen was finding it difficult to adjust to in England, and missed her friends dreadfully. The small town where he was a junior in a practice was utterly different to the city Ontario city she had grown up in, and she missed her social life, and her singing career.

He found it hard to reconcile the memory that had become idealised in his mind with the living, breathing actuality with whom he woke every morning and sat to supper with each night.

For the next few years things ebbed and flowed. She began to take singing engagements and became happier. He worked long hours, building his reputation and practice. He was made Junior Partner. They entertained, and built up a small social circle, but he felt something was missing. It wasn’t her he knew that. His job seemed to be focussed so much on treating elderly rich people for gout and lumbago, and not in the noble deeds he had pictured when a student. He felt he’d missed the point.

This was emphasised when one of his university friends, Dr Andrew Milligan came to dinner on leave from his missionary work in the South Seas. Andy sensed his dissatisfaction and suggested that he should think of applying, and when Gwen saw the leap of interest in her husband’s eyes her heart sank. He often thought how different it would have been if she had gone with him as planned.

Three weeks before they were due to sail, she received a telegram which changed things forever. Her mother was very ill, and she must return to Canada. He said goodbye to her on board and they promised to write, it would be like those long student years, then she would come to him and they would be happy.

***

Mary and John were married in the little hospital chapel surrounded by their friends and colleagues. It felt so natural that he barely winced at the ‘lawful impediment’. After all, Gwen was in the past. She had her own life. They were married in name only, and in the singing world, not even that. She used her maiden name, building on the small reputation she had acquired before they were wed.

After Gwen’s mother died, almost a year after his departure for the Far East, she remained in the Canada for a few months, settling her father and finding him a housekeeper, caring for her sister who had just had a baby and becoming more and more aware that she didn’t want to move to the hot climate and strange surroundings of his hospital compound.

After many letters they agreed that she would take a flat in London and continue to sing in concerts. He would come home to her as often as leave permitted, perhaps every two years. Each was secretly a little ashamed that they weren’t more saddened by this turn of events.

He was transferred to Samoa after four years. His new colleagues assumed he was unmarried, and he somehow never corrected it. Some of the nurses speculated about a tragedy in his past, but he was content to work, and to be with Mary.

He continued to receive letters from Gwen, but at greater intervals. He wrote back, equally dutifully, but instead of keeping her letters in a box as he had before, this time he burnt them. As he also received equally infrequent letters from his sister Lucia, it was easy to pretend to Mary that they were from a similar relation, the wife of his cousin or the brother who died. Mary was no letter writer, and strangely incurious over why there were no greetings addressed to her.

Lucia was the only person who knew his sordid little secret. He confessed all in a letter several months after his marriage to Mary. Her response was almost a snort as she asked why he didn’t write to Gwen and obtain a divorce. He blinked. It had never occurred to him.

He would not write, though, he would visit her on his next leave and explain that he had met someone whom he wished to marry. She would understand. She lived in a world where divorce was not the terrible stigma that it was in most circles, and his friends in Samoa would not need to know. He and Mary would be on legal terms, and he could think of Gwen as a happy romance from his youth.

John wasn’t sure how he could persuade his wife – his second wife – not to accompany him for part of his stay in England. Eventually events made it simple. They would travel over together, and visit her mother in Norfolk. Then she would go to stay with an old school friend, Valerie Wilson, somewhere over near Wales. He would visit London, ostensibly to visit some bachelor doctor chums who had a house in Kensington, and speak to Gwen. They would meet at the family home in Cornwall, where Lucia now lived. Gwen would not wish to accompany him – she said that the house was creepy, she and Luce did not get on particularly, and she would not want to accompany the husband who wanted to detach himself from her. He could return to London for ‘meetings’ and ‘conferences’ and get all of the paperwork sorted out. They would return to Samoa a free and legal couple.

Of course it didn’t go to plan.

They had taken the slow boat for the last part of the journey home, calling at ports in Europe and taking the chance to see lands that looked to them far more exotic than the fruits and faces of Samoa. It was, as Mary said with a radiant face, a true honeymoon.

The first complication came when he arrived in London in the late afternoon to discover that Gwen had not received his letter. It had been a risk, of course, letting her know of the boat, and that he was forced to delay his arrival because of ‘hospital business’, but he was confident that she would not expect to meet him.

When he reached her flat the commissionaire informed him that Mrs Gordon was at the Theatre for her performance. He left his overnight bag in the left luggage at Charing Cross and bought a ticket for the show.

It was years since he had seen her perform. She was light and energy, passion and fire. Her voice pulled at his heart and awoke the feelings long since dormant. Pride swelled within him. This was his wife, despite the woman who waited for him in Wales. He felt the old waves of heat and cold wash through him and his stomach flipped. He forgot Mary, forgot Samoa, forgot everything but the woman on stage.

He went round to the stage door after the curtain. The porter took his message up and shortly returned to escort him to her dressing room. She was taking off her make-up, wearing a robe over her street clothes, skin flushed and eyes glowing with the exultation of the performance. He didn’t think twice, he caught her up in his arms and clutched her to him, kissing her fervently. She returned the attentions, and soon they were in a taxi, heading home.

***

On the fourth day his conscience started to tingle. The years in London had changed Gwen. She was older now, the youth and inexperience that had made her adorable at first, but then made him tense, was replaced by the maturity of a woman used to making her own living, and the tinkle-y laugh that had grown to irritate him was replaced by a throaty chuckle. The pizzazz of London and her sparkle made him feel that the years in the East were a dream, much as England was a dream in Samoa.

That day, while she was at rehursals he went for a long walk. He strode past Charing Cross, where he had crept slightly shamefaced to collect his bag on the second day, pausing to watch some children feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square, before turning across to St James’ Park.

He had to clear his thoughts. Gwen had made it very clear that she loved her life and its freedoms. She was happy to have him home for a few weeks, but already he could tell she was a little bored with him. She wanted to go out at night with her friends. She wanted to keep her comfortable flat, she wanted to entertain in a casual fashion instead of the formal dinner parties for his colleagues that had been a feature of their early years together.

The past few days had been amazing. He felt rejuvenated, and surprisingly free of guilt. Gwen was, after all, his wife.

Then he forced himself to think of Mary and of Samoa. A feeling of peace washed through him. He had to confess to himself that he was exhausted by the Gwen’s lifestyle, and though it was exciting, it wasn’t what he saw when he thought about his future. Mary, calm and comfortable, gentle, fierce in her work for the disadvantaged at the hospital, was right for him. It was the way it should be.

Did he love Gwen? It was difficult. He had thought about her so little for the time away, but now he found himself thinking more and more about Mary. He felt an ache in his chest. He belonged with Mary. He wanted to go to Mary. He had to tell Gwen. Or did he? It would take so little to not tell her, to leave the infrequent, inconsequential letters, to have a week of her vitality every couple of years. No, that would be wrong. He must make it clear that his future lay elsewhere.

He departed for Cornwall without voicing his thoughts. Gwen had always been so busy, and so hypnotic. He had spent a lot of time with his doctor friends, and thus could be semi-truthful with Mary. Gwen saw him off with a cheerful ‘Goodbye, darling! Try to see me again before you sail.’

He settled back in his seat. He would come back. He would visit, explain, and they could get the papers. All would be well, he just needed time.

***

Mary and Lucia got on beautifully. Mary smoothed over Luce’s flurries and distractions, and didn’t bat an eyelid to find paint tubes in the pantry and linseed oil next to the bath salts.

He left her a couple of times while he ran up to London for a few days, genuinely staying at the club. On the first occasion he arrived late and called the next morning to see Gwen, meaning to tell her and start the process.

A pitiful figure met him in the doorway. She was pale green, her hair limp and eyes dull. She opened the door wordlessly and limped back to the couch, where she collapsed with a groan. ‘Too many gin fizz’s, darling. It will pass. Do make me some tea, and then let me die in peace.’ He found the kettle, and then crept away, leaving her dozing on the sofa.

Back in Cornwall they were very happy for the remainder of the leave, and set out for Samoa joyfully. He wrote to Gwen from the boat, where there was no risk of her flying into a fury and descending on him. Quick to burn and quick to heal. He would be far enough away to escape the flames.

A sign of the second trouble had been when Mary, usually such a good sailor, was very ill for the whole voyage home. She spent terrible restless nights, could barely move in the mornings, and eventually managed to drag herself on deck in the early afternoon, where she would gradually revive, curled in rugs and sipping hot soup. It continued after the landing, much to his panic, until she quietly murmured that this was a sign for rejoicing.

The future rose up before him glowing and joyful. A baby! Once more Gwen was out of his thoughts, and remained there until he received the letter.

‘Darling, I might have agreed to your request, but your last leave has resulted in a condition where it is more fitting that I should be a married woman than a divorced one. I have my life in London, and the child shan’t grow up wanting for his father being abroad. I could ask you to provide for us, but as you know I have some private means, as well as my career, and the child will be well cared for here with me. By the tone of your letter I do not know whether this will change your mind, and I certainly do not ask that it does. If you do love this woman, as you describe, perhaps you can come to some arrangement. I release you from all of your bonds to me, except for the child. All I will ask is that you write occasionally and pay us a visit when you are on leave. He will know that his father is a brave man, working with the savages, and that he has not abandoned us.

He crumpled the letter in his hands, then smoothed it out and read it once more. What a mess. What a wretched mess.

***

He was sitting on the same step, anxiously gripping another piece of paper, some five months later.

Eventually a face popped round the door. ‘Dr Gordon?’ He stood up, pale and drawn, and then relaxed as the nurse broke into a smile. ‘A little girl, Dr Gordon. Come and see her now.’

‘Mary?’ the nurse nodded.

‘Mrs Gordon is very well, but very tired. You can pop in to see her, but you mustn’t stay long.’

Mary lay in bed, white, exhausted, but with a look in her eyes that he had never seen before. The baby lay in a crib near by, a red, rumpled little thing with a face that peered up at him. ‘A daughter.’ Her voice was barely audible. ‘For your mother. Will please Lucia.’

He took her hand and kissed it. ‘Then she shall have her mother’s name too.’

They looked across at the white wrapped bundle that was Katharine Mary Gordon, and John gave not a thought to Gwen, thousands of miles away, alone with her new baby.

The letter announcing Mary Katharine’s birth reached Samoa just as Katharine Mary was learning to roll over. Gwen announced that the child was healthy, gave the date (some three weeks before her half sister) and stated that the child had been named for her grandmothers, noting slightly acerbically that as the little girl would barely know her father it would be nice to be able to tell her that he had wished his daughter to be called after his own mother.

He didn’t tell Gwen about Katharine, because that would have meant explaining that he and Mary had in fact been married for nearly two years. He continued to receive letters every few months, sometimes angry, sometimes terse, but always in those descriptions he saw echoes of his other daughter.

As the girls grew, so far apart, war broke out across the world. When their home was threatened, he sent Mary and Katharine to Australia, and he kept working in the hospital. Gwen and Mary-Kate had returned to Canada in 1941 for the duration. When it was safe, his wives and daughters returned, Gwen to her unscathed west-end flat, and Mary to their island home.

Katharine was a big girl by now, and if the war hadn’t intervened, she would have been sent ‘home’ to school. When he was appointed to the big hospital in Singapore she was despatched with her mother, after many tears and pleadings, to live with her grandmother in England. The climate in Cornwall was healthier, the schools were better, and Mary made him promise that their little girl would not be sent to boarding school until she was at least fourteen. ‘Let her grow up with your sister to distract her from the cold and wet. Lucia will give her enough to think about, and by the time she meets all the rules and regulations of school, she’ll be ready for them.’

After the war he heard from Gwen, periodically, now more successful than ever in her new field of musical comedy. A ‘forces sweetheart’, he had heard her on the wireless once. The distant voice, fuzzy with the bad reception, sent shivers along his spine. Mary-Kate was at a small weekly boarding school in Kent, and returned to her mother at weekends. Gwen clearly doted on the child and was reluctant to make the decision to send her to the large boarding school as her friends hinted. She continued to buy her weekend finery, coddle her, and keep their comfortable, casual lives.

And thus Katharine Mary and Mary-Katharine grew up, parallel, but separate. Lucia did not ask about Gwen, and John had never confided in her about his other daughter. Safe in the Far East, Mary had no hint of his other life, and Gwen’s letters now had the detached tones of the cousin Mary thought she was. Nobody need ever know. There was not a possibility of the girls ever meeting, and no reason why either should ever hear of her half sister, another little girl with a remarkably similar name.


End file.
